Microsoft Cuts Even More Jobs; Greece Banking on Another Bailout; Barclays Boots its Chie

NO-kia…

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It’s not exactly a good day at Microsoft today (or Greece, for that matter but we’ll get to that a bit later). The tech firm just announced that 7,800 more layoffs are coming down the pike, on top of the 18,000 layoffs the company announced last year. It seems the Windows maker just isn’t at the forefront of the latest tech era and its hitting the company in its portfolio. Microsoft had already sold off its online advertising business to AOL but a lot of their latest ills are courtesy of its $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia. As luck would have it, that not-so-little purchase to make headway into the smartphone market wasn’t all that smart. Microsoft now has plans to write down $7.6 billion on the Nokia unit. The company just couldn’t seem to make strides against the reigning competition from Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android. Microsoft’s smartphone market share was just an abysmal 3% – a major letdown from a company who had so often dominated tech realms.

Here we go again…

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Well, Greece finally whipped out its big grand plan which definitely loses points for lack of originality. Like a teenager who doesn’t seem to want to learn from his or her mistakes, the cash-strapped, debt-infused country has asked for yet another bailout. This time around, Greece asked for a three year bailout from the annoyed eurozone’s rescue funds. However, Greece is promising to implement pension and tax reforms. To be fair, no real details were actually given. Hmmm. Greek officials said they would map out a “comprehensive and specific reform agenda” by tomorrow. We’ll see about that. Now all those eurozone finance ministers have to decide if they’re going to give in to Greece. And while Greece’s Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, wants to reach a deal with creditors that needs to be fair on both sides, he also warned that his peeps need to be on board. Otherwise, no dice. What Tsipras and the fine people of Greece don’t dig are austerity measures. Any whiff of austerity and chances are no deal will be reached and more fiscal chaos will ensue. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew finally commented on the situation stressing that Europe ought to help Greece restructure its debt. Which would be super-great because maybe then stocks all over the world will finally cooperate and go up instead of taking bad financial cues from Greece.

The skills to pay the bills…

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Major drama coming out of Barclays today, where Chief Executive Antony Watkins received an unwelcome surprise – he got the boot. Fired. Shown the door. In a statement, Barclays, which has seen its share of scandal in the last few years, said “a new set of skills” was needed for the individual who will take the reins at the company. Ouch. Apparently, officials at the bank thought Watkins wasn’t doing enough to dig Barclays out of its scandal-laden pit. Board chairman, John McFarlane, will serve as interim chief until a more permanent replacement can be found – one who presumably possesses that much desired skill-set. Barclays, Britain’s biggest bank, is currently staring down the wrong end of fines and investigations over its role and manipulation of London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) as well as its other un-flattering role in foreign exchange rate manipulation. Nice, huh?